The year couldn’t have been more weird and surreal than what we’ve been going through as a global society. I can remember this time last year talking about the possibility of a lockdown with fellow artists at last years Heard Indian Market. We were all unprepared for the our current situation. The lives that we have lost and continue to lose is heartbreaking, and yet we must continue to move forward and learn to live with our new way of life. During this time I’ve been painting and working from home, and while I managed to travel, we had to limit our contact with other people and forgo social activities.

This year, in an effort to maintain safety for everyone involved, the Heard Indian Market will be a virtual event. I had agreed to do the event when the call came out, as I had also done the virtual market for Santa Fe Indian Market. In December, the Heard Guild reached out to me and inquired whether I could work with the museum in creating the art for the t-shirts this year. I provided several ideas and finished works to decide on a direction for the art.

Out of these meetings, the Guild chose “Corollary” because of the backstory:

Corollary – pencil sketch
Corollary_WIP – mixed medium painting (spray paint, markers, acrylic)

I came up with the concept for Corollary while problem solving. It started with a good friend of mine, who was moving away to another town, and she couldn’t find a place to put an unfinished canvas. So, she gave it to me and I proceeded to hang on to it, thinking I could reuse it at some point. Fast forward several years later when I wanted to start using up some of the canvases that I had been acquiring over the years, and I found the canvas again. My friend had painted a huge Y chromosome in yellow over the whole canvas, and keeping that in mind I wanted to do a painting while in isolation that could contain the voices and frustrations of everyone during this time. I created the background, but I didn’t have anything beyond that, until a few more months passed and the anxiety and feelings of helplessness with friends and family passing away, led me to more drawing and sketching. This was when Corollary emerged from those dark times. I had a vision of Mother earth carrying the burden of the living and the dead, and offering compassion and hope.

The only problem was the painting had to be finished, and then I had to vector the art, all in a 3 week time period, and still juggling my day job. But I committed to the project and worked evenings and weekends, and completed the painting

And right after that I took the photo and started vectoring the image and produced the vector over a weekend.

Overall the project turned out great and the honor of working with the Heard Museum Guild to create a t-shirt for the market. The t-shirts will be available for a limited time and all the proceeds go to the museum.

To reserve your shirts, go to the following link:

https://www.bonfire.com/2021-heard-museum-indian-fair-market-shirt/

And the Virtual Heard Indian Market will be on March 5, 7th (https://heard.org/event/fair-2021/)

Thank you for your support and please keep safe out there.